Chapter Text
Her stomach had been tied into a pretzel for so long, she couldn’t remember the last time she had woken up in the morning without feeling queasy.
Fuck, it wasn’t even the entirety of her afterlife—it was most of her life too. Especially that last decade. Fuck, maybe she had just always felt sick, maybe she was just constantly sick, and this was the least nervous she would be down in Hell.
It didn’t really matter—she spent so much time with Angel Dust at this point, that they usually got each other’s illnesses, but Angel had yet to complain about eternal nausea and stress migraines, so it obviously wasn’t contagious and therefore, not enough to keep her home.
Angel smeared more of her foundation on beneath her eye—moments ago he had been concerned, but by now, concern had paved way for amusement, and he was wearing the most shit eating grin as he tried to cover up her black eye. “I can’t believe ya actually fuckin’ punched him,” he said.
She groaned. “Valentino’s gonna have my head for this.”
It wasn’t her fault. That asshole clearly hadn’t read the fucking sign—he wasn’t supposed to touch her, and he did, and she panicked! She wasn’t even supposed to be at the fucking strip club anyway, but no.
Angel chuckled. “He is,” he said. “But I mean, that asshole had it comin’—me and all the other girls were contemplatin’ draggin’ him into an alley and stabbin’ him with some stilettos.” He narrowed his eyes, tilted her face a bit to look closer at her bruise. “So ya kinda made yaself my hero, babe.”
Vaggie would have rolled her eyes, but there was a lot of times where rolling her eyes would get her into trouble—this wasn’t one of the times, but she didn’t let herself all the same. “He was still a customer, even the asshole ones are customers.” It felt like most of the customers were assholes. Maybe all of them. The ones Vaggie interacted with were all definitely assholes.
Angel looked at her flatly—at this point, he could basically read her mind. “...He shouldn’t have brought ya here,” he said at last, put the lid back on her concealer and crossed a pair of arms behind his head—he had apparently dubbed her presentable. “He shoulda expected this, this ain’t your fault, toots.”
When anyone else called Vaggie baby, she felt sick—but she gave Angel a bit more leeway, because he was from the forties where, she imagined, men called all women baby and shit, and because he used it like he actually cared about her well-being (at least sometimes). She remembered, back in El Salvador, she had met another woman who had been into sex work for much longer than her, a veteran of sorts, and as the days passed, Angel reminded her of her in small bits and pieces, but mostly in the way he—like her, if Vaggie could only remember her name—had just sort of taken her under his wing.
He was much taller than her, skinny, covered with white fur and that was the least weird part of him, because he had eight fucking eyes, and with the pair of arms behind his head, he had another pair right beneath it, crossed over his abdomen, though he had admitted to her once that he had six arms in total. He was dressed in a cotton candy pink mini skirt that was way, way too short, and any wrong move had him flashing her, showing off a black thong that was still super skimpy, and a top in the same color that the fur on his chest bulged against the neckline of, spilling out like makeshift cleavage, a pink heart on his fur, over his unbeating one in his chest. He looked comfortable, relaxed—he reveled in the attention his slutty outfit gave him.
...Vaggie didn’t know how he managed, but he did. “Mierda, I need some aspirin,” she said, grabbed one of the many pill bottles on Angel’s vanity in his dressing room.
He reached over and took it back. “Not aspirin, babe,” he said.
”Will it help with my headache?” She asked.
He frowned and grabbed a different pill bottle—it rattled in his hand as he poured three into her palm. “Try that.”
She swallowed them dry—it was a bad idea, considering she almost choked and her mouth was dry as fuck, and her phone buzzed in her pocket with a new text, probably from Valentino, which somehow managed to startle her. She coughed once into her fist and rubbed at her temples—it could not start working fast enough.
”Fuck, I feel sick,” she complained.
“Ya always feel sick, Vaggie.” Angel glanced at his reflection in the vanity; he still had another show tonight to do before he could really clock out. He reached up to fix some minuscule flaw in his eyeliner. “Don’tchya feel anythin’ else ‘sides sick?”
“Tired,” she added. “And kind of itchy.”
Angel laughed. “Itchy?”
”Lace is itchy,” she responded, adjusted a strap on her shoulder—she did not like the outfit Valentino had bought her, a white lace crop top that was literally a bralette with a high collar and a tight pair of hot pants that showed every inch of her legs. It was much different from the usual black satin she wore for work, and...
She wasn’t supposed to be here.
Her phone buzzed again—another new text from Valentino. The first one had been, Come on out, babygirl, we need to talk ❤️, but this one was just a simple Get your skinny ass out here.
She sighed—a pit dropped into her stomach and she forced her phone back into her really tight, barely there pocket, where it jutted sharply into her thigh and hurt every step of the way. “I need to leave.”
Angel looked at her sympathetically and patted her head. “Text me,” he said. “When ya get all done with whatever he’s gonna do to ya.”
”Yeah, sure, okay.” Her phone buzzed again—she wasn’t going to read it, but she could imagine it; NOW. “I’ll see you, Angel.”
She swore, that burning, tight anxiety in her stomach only got worse the closer she got to Valentino.
She lingered on the sidewalk for a moment to steel herself, even though she could clearly see Valentino’s limo on the street, light from a nearby street lamp glinting off of the hood. The driver was holding the door open, baring the dark interior. She’d just piss him off further by making him wait, she needed to get it over with—like ripping off a bandaid, or doing a shot.
She stepped inside—she needed to wait for her vision to adjust to the dim, hot pink lighting, but it was impossible to miss Valentino—he was tall, dressed in his usual red coat, looking her up and down—Vaggie also noticed that he didn’t have a girl on either pair of arms. The two of them were completely alone—she did not like the privacy.
Every last inch of the limo was covered in hearts—Valentino’s signature, she had learned at some point, probably early on. Everything he owned had hearts on them—including his employees. Valentino had told her many times where he was thinking of putting her heart tattoo on when she finally signed one of his contracts, but that day had yet to come and, Vaggie hoped, never would.
Instead, she wore an earring he gave her—less permanent than a tattoo, but still marking her as his.
He looked at her flatly before lighting a cigar. “I’m sure you have a good explanation for me, Mancia—because from what I heard, it sounded like you punched a paying customer for no fuckin’ reason, and I know you know better than that, sugar.”
Mancia. She really wished she had never told him her full name. “I do,” she said.
”Out with it then, baby.” The limo started moving—that knot her stomach was in tightened. “I wanna hear this.”
She took a deep breath. “There was... Some guy touched me—he... tried to pull down my shorts when I was dancing, I panicked.” Valentino’s eyes didn’t leave her face—she tried to keep her voice even. “I shoved him away, and he tried to hit me, so... I hit first.” And it turned into a brawl. Angel had had to split them apart, while the other guy spat blood onto the floor and called her a crazy bitch, before he was finally escorted out by security while Angel dragged her off.
”That’s it?” He asked.
...Did he want more? She moved her hands to her lap, face heating up—her heart didn’t beat, so she shouldn’t really have rushing blood, but she could still flush when she got angry or embarrassed, and she had yet to figure out how that worked. “...Yeah,” she responded. “That’s it.”
”Oh, baby...” He tapped a piece of ash into a nearby ash tray. “The manager made it sound way worse than that.” She curled her hands into fists, couldn’t bring herself to look up at him. “He made it sound like a bloodbath. I was a little worried you were takin’ so long because you were in pieces, pretty girl.” A hand reached over, fingers fitting right over where Angel had grabbed her, to tilt her head and look at his makeup work on her. “You look fine to me.”
”Angel helped me cover up the bruises.” It came out as a mumble--it had been scary, it'd been awhile since she'd been in a fight, and longer since one like that... but the man hadn't even drawn blood.
”Did he now?” He tilted her head to the left—his thumb swiped away some of the makeup around her eye and against her nose, showing the dark colored bruises that had appeared on her skin. “So you attack a paying customer and then make Angel take time away from work to help you?”
”What?” Valentino had yet to let go of her face. “No, I didn’t—“
”Babygirl, you know better than this.” A second hand moved to stroke her hair, collecting it to pull over one of her shoulders and twist around his fingers. “Don’t think just ‘cause I like you, I’m gonna let you get away with actin’ like a brat on the clock.”
His voice made her stomach turn—like she wasn’t already feeling sick or something, but on top of that, something in her head, in her temple pulsed with heat. She fought to keep her temper under control—you didn’t go around snapping at your boss, not in life, and definitely not in Hell. “I didn’t attack him,” she insisted. “It just—It got out of hand, but I wasn’t going to stand there while he hit me.”
He pulled a bit harder on her hair—she felt the burn on her scalp, but she stayed where she was. She didn’t want to get any closer. “I know, baby—you got a little overwhelmed. You’re not used to stripping—but I needed you to fill in for one of my girls today and you let me down. Over something small like this—you wasted Angel’s time, security’s, and lost me a paying customer, because one illiterate fuckhead got a little too handsy.”
She felt her face heat up—the faux-sympathy was what was really getting her mad. If he could just tell her to shut the fuck up and let his stupid fucking customers feel her up because they wanted to and it was her job, she might be able to accept that, but no, he had to drag her in here and stroke her hair, and make it seem like he could possibly be understanding about this, like if maybe she tried to explain herself a little more, she’d get anything other than Valentino’s wrath. “It’s okay, chica bonita—I know you’re shy. I’m not too angry with you, sugar.” He stroked her cheek tenderly—it didn’t seem to quite match up with his large grin, the way he was eying her. “You know Daddy’d never let anyone hurt you too bad, don’t you, Vaggie?”
She forced herself to nod—he clicked his tongue. “C’mon, pretty girl. Use your words. You know I don’t like it when you get this quiet.”
Her mouth felt so dry—the first thing she was gonna do when she was clocked out and able to return to the studio, back to her bed, was drink water. Just pound glass after glass. Those pills she took earlier had yet to hit. “I do,” she said.
”Good girl.” He tightened his hold on her hair. “...You know I could, don’t you, baby?”
”Could what?” She asked.
”Could let someone hurt you.” His thumb swiped over one of her lips, probably smudging the lipgloss she had put on earlier today. “Anyone. That’s where the contract’s supposed to come in, babygirl—you work for me, I get your profits, and you get a room at the studio, and I keep you safe.” She swallowed—he pulled her closer by the hair, and she just decided to let it happen, because she kind of liked her hair and didn’t want to be scalped. “I don’t have to do anything for you, really, Mancia—what’s stoppin’ me from throwing your pretty little ass onto the street? Maybe you should have let that guy hit you—someone needs to teach you a lesson, baby.”
”You’re hurting me.” She didn’t expect it to do anything, but she figured it worth saying.
”Good.” He tugged her closer still, until she was on his lap. “Are you listenin’ to me, sugar? I’ll tell you how many times you want me to, but I get the feeling you want to keep this short. Are you listenin’ to me, Vaggie?”
She wanted to nod, but he’d just make her say it. “I’m listening.”
He tightened his grip still. “Good girl,” he breathed. “Hell’s dangerous, baby. Do you have any idea—“ One of his hands moved onto her shoulder, snapped one of the stupid lace straps of her top against her skin. “—what some demons would do to you, if they saw such a pretty, sweet thing like you on the street?” He hooked a finger beneath the strap again—his gloved hand was cool—it was only somewhat better than his skin on her’s. “I don’t think they’d take no for an answer, darlin’. You think you can tell them that you’re a lesbian, and you don’t want to have sex with men, and they’ll just let you on your way?
”Fuck, even some women down here would probably love to have some fun with you—you have to be careful down here, Vaggie. Someone needs to protect you—you think you can fend for yourself with your skinny little arms?”
He paused—Vaggie could feel that earring she wore—gold and gaudy and glowing in the light—was cold against her skin. “...Is that a rhetorical question?” She asked. “...Am I supposed to answer you now?”
”You don’t have to, baby—we both know you can’t.” Kind of insulting—he squeezed her bicep, like he wanted to illustrate how skinny her arms were. “I’m surprised that man you punched didn’t snap your pretty little neck. Wouldn’t be hard, would it?” That same hand moved to her neck, touch feather light but still threatening. “It wouldn’t kill you, baby—but it’d hurt like a bitch. And with your neck broken, you wouldn’t really be able to struggle, would you?” He squeezed gently—he had yet to lose his amused grin, and he had moved a third hand onto her thigh, thumb running over the hem of her shorts. “I’ve seen girls just like you get lured into cars, alleyways. People promise to pay them, they look like just another client and then—“
A roll of thunder sounded outside, loud and low, and she nearly jumped out of her skin—shitty fucking timing, probably gonna storm somewhere soon. Valentino laughed and her stomach clenched tighter. “—and then you’re tied to a chair in a warehouse, somewhere, sugar. Or tied spread eagle on a bed, a dog collar around your throat and connected to the bedpost. Or you’re hanging off of a meat hook in a freezer somewhere. There’s a thousand ways to do it, and demons down here, Vaggie, have an eternity to find out which way they prefer—I had one part time employee like you, baby—she didn’t wanna sign a contract, either, and you know what happened to her?”
Alarm bells were going off in her head. Every instinct told her to get out of this limo and stay the fuck away from Valentino for the rest of eternity. ”Oh, no, what?” She asked.
”Found that young thing tied up in an alley, to a chair—stripped naked, bleeding. I think what happened...” He took a slow, long drag of his cigar that’d been burning low for awhile. “...is some other demons found her. She was there for awhile, you know—at least a few weeks. I don’t know what they did to her, but I only found her after that Extermination. Poor girl was barely eighteen—I bet she was terrified.”
She swallowed the lump in her throat—emotions wouldn’t help her right now. And yeah, Valentino was a demon, but this was Hell, and he had become a demon that she knew—in that way, and that way only, he was better than anyone else she could run into down here... And he paid for her room at the studio. “So, what?” She asked. “Why are you... telling me all this?”
He grinned. “I like you, sugar—you’re so pretty, you’d be a good little moneymaker if you were just a bit more cooperative.” He pressed her hair—twisted into a handheld spiral—against the base of the back of her neck, keeping it out of her face. “I just wanna keep you safe, chica bonita. At this point, signing a contract is more of a formality—you already stay at the studio, baby, and you already work for me...”
”So what’s the point in signing one?” She asked.
”It makes sure both of us fulfill this little agreement of ours, sugar—just like there’s nothing stoppin’ me from moving you out of the studio to get slaughtered by a pack of Exorcists on an Extermination, there isn’t anything keepin’ you from not handing over your money, or showin’ up to work. After tonight, I’m a little tempted to throw you out, babygirl—you wanna keep Daddy happy, don’t you? Sign your pretty little soul over to me so I can keep you safe, and you won’t have to worry about customers who can’t keep their hands to themselves—doesn’t that sound good, baby?”
She wouldn’t have had to deal with customers at all tonight if Valentino hadn’t made her work at the club—it wasn’t her job. She was a cam girl, and that was it, but he wouldn’t quit pestering her—if he wasn’t this close, she’d say it too, say that this was his fault and of course she got overwhelmed, she was out of practice and she hadn’t wanted to do this in the first place, but the distance (well, the lack thereof) between the two of them made her courage shrivel up and die in her chest, sink to join the pit in her stomach. He could hit her, or snap her neck like he seemed tempted to do just a moment ago, and all this conversation was freaking her out, she didn’t want to piss him off.
But she wasn’t about to agree to this, either—so she bit her tongue and stayed silent.
That hand on the back of her neck moved, so it could still hold her hair against her neck, but could stroke her cheek with the pad of his thumb. “Ya veo,” he said. He took one last drag off his cigar and crushed it in the ash tray.
”I’m sorry,” she said, but she really wasn’t. “I just don’t feel comfortable selling my soul. It’s basically all I have.”
”Don’t you worry, beautiful.” He situated her on his lap again, making her spread her legs and straddle his thigh. “I’ll still let you make this all up for me—now, how do you want to fix this, babygirl?”
Honestly? She didn’t want to at all. Her boss was a dick, and she was feeling pretty uncomfortable with how intently he was staring—fuck, she would have preferred watching him finger another employee in front of her than this. At least sometimes the girls looked like they were enjoying it. “I can do another cam show,” she said.
He was silent—no, he wanted her to suffer. Right.
”I’ve an idea for you, sugar.” He squeezed her thigh gently and let go of her hair. “You gotta learn at some point how dangerous it is down here—so I want you—“ The limo came to a sudden stop. “—to get out right here, and stand on this corner for me, to make up the money you cost me tonight.”
This wasn’t her job—tonight shouldn’t have even happened. She looked up at Valentino, but he didn’t seem to care. “No, baby girl, don’t look at me like that—you’ve been actin’ like a little brat for awhile, I think you need to be put in your place. So you’re going to stand right there on that corner, until you get enough money to make this up to me, or another demon terrifies you into sellin’ your soul to me so I can protect you properly. I don’t think that’s askin’ too much, sweetness.”
”...But the cam show wouldn’t be enough?” She asked.
”Of course it would be,” he said. “But I’m punishing you, sugar—you like your cam shows too much, I want you to learn a lesson.” The door opened, Valentino pulled out his phone—there was no room for discussion, she was doing this, he had decided for her. “Maybe when you come back to the studio, apologize for bein’ a little bitch and mouthing off to me, and bring me my money, I’ll give you a few doses of black tar—you’d like that, wouldn’t you, babygirl?”
...She would, actually.
She moved to the door. “Are you gonna be good for me, chica bonita?” He asked—he must have lit another cigar, considering the sound of the lighter—fuck, she was gonna need a smoke after this. “You want to make this up to me, don’t you, Vaggie, baby?”
She wondered if he gave all of his employees pet names like that. She had heard him call other girls similar things—she was pretty sure all of his employees were baby. It was like, a hierarchy. The bottom of it only got baby. Everyone got baby, but if you were just called baby, he didn’t like you as much, and then it was sugar, and sweetheart, and above that was darlin’. He had heard him call Angel Angel Cakes, resting a hand on his thigh and looking him over, talking about how he looked so gorgeous on that pole, how he was such a good boy and he could just eat him up. Vaggie had yet to hear him call anyone else anything in Spanish.
She wasn’t sure how to feel about that, so she told herself to feel nothing whatsoever towards it.
She bit back a sigh, and turned to face him—he’d bitched about her lack of eye contact before, and she really wanted this to be over and done with already. “Sí, Papi.”
She was pretty sure, before Valentino, Papi had been only reserved for her father, and she had been seven years old—and now, she was down here, just about seven years dead, calling a literal fucking pimp the name she had reserved for her still-alive-father. She hadn’t even called him that in a really long time.
That thought didn’t sit well with her. “Good girl,” he all but purred. “You can bitch all about your night tomorrow when you’re apologizing to me, okay, sweetheart? You stay away from Cannibal Town and you’ll be fine, sugar.”
And that was it—the conversation was done. She stepped out and onto the sidewalk, shifted on her feet in the flickering, yellow light of the nearby lamppost and crossed her arms over her chest like it’d cover more of her up. She just stared at her feet, face burning and trying not to fume, while Valentino’s limo drove off.
This was embarrassing. She thought her days of working street corners were over.
Just like she had thought her days of stripping were over before tonight.
Just like she had thought her days of sex work were over, before she fell down here.
...Now she couldn’t stop thinking of home—she’d been down here for seven years, but it could have been just a few months to her. Time was a weird thing, especially when you had so much of it, and she...
She was probably going to have an eternity. An eternity, working beneath Valentino.
She sighed and pulled her own box of cigarettes out of her tight pocket—she didn’t smoke often, only when she was worked up and angry and needed something to focus on. For her, cigarettes were a way to help focus on her breathing, and it sounded better than staring at her stripper heels and standing there like a lost child for someone to come offer her money for a blowjob or something.
Her stomach knotted itself again, she fumbled with the lighter a moment—she really didn’t want to do this.
She didn’t know how some people enjoyed stuff like this, only that they did—Angel seemed perfectly happy getting dicked on screen by people he didn’t know, said he liked the attention, and that it was fun, and he always used that tone that implied he thought Vaggie was a prude for not finding any sort of fun in it—but he had said that Vaggie used that tone when she was acting disgusted by it that implied she thought he was a slut for enjoying his job.
Vaggie couldn’t really make too much sense out of it—something about the nerves, about feeling like she was on display just... bugged her. Men looked at her and it was like her skin was crawling, and the fact that she was just expected to trust these dickwads down here to not grab her by her hair, hold her down and... hurt her. Vulnerability was not her forte--but that seemed to be the only thing she was capable of these days, that she could only be weak.
...Why was she doing this again?
The night was loud. Demons milled about, and some glanced at her, but moved on—it made sense. She’d been told she was pretty, but she was more of that simple, girl-next door pretty, and she knew because of her plenty of co-workers who were drop-dead gorgeous, and those co-workers were probably on corners else where, filling out their quotas—Vaggie did not blame any demons who would prefer dropping a few hundred on a night with Dia, or one of the dewy-eyed blondes Valentino had traveling in packs, or some of the succubi walking down the street in short skirts and tight t-shirts and...
Fuck, she was gay.
She took a slow, long drag of her cigarette—cars raced by. She had a feeling it’d be a long night, since no one seemed to be biting. She thought she would have preferred getting felt up by some asshole at the club, where safety was one pull out of his arms away instead of on the street, where anyone could go up to her and she’d be more or less helpless to do much of anything. At least she could have gotten tips at the club.
...Valentino had really freaked her out in the limo—her skin was still crawling. She really needed a drink, and this cigarette wasn’t doing it for her tonight.
She tilted her head back and looked at Heaven—just a small, white, far off dot in the sky, like a star only a bit larger, and somehow even farther away.
She had not cared about Heaven on the time of her death. She hadn’t cared about Hell either—she had assumed that the afterlife was what the living used to comfort themselves over their fear of the unknown, a great unknown that they could discover when the time came, and she had assumed death was a stark nothingness—not an eternal black, or a bleak white, because you were dead and couldn’t really see color, feel anything—just... nothing.
She would have preferred that to an afterlife.
The stress and wear and tear of the day was beginning to show—her hair was coming undone, getting into her eyes, her suit was wrinkled, and every time she stopped a demon to talk about redemption, they laughed her off and continued on with their night.
Across from her, Alastor seemed just fine, lounging in his seat comfortably, politely, and still grinning.
It shouldn’t have been a surprise—he was clear from the start about his intentions and motivations, and Charlie had no one else, to the point where Alastor’s companionship, assistance, and presence was welcomed. He was only here to be entertained, and holy fuck, was Charlie entertaining right now—rattled, somewhat defeated, and still persevering, she was certain he’d enjoy his time at the hotel.
...The mostly empty hotel.
”No one’s biting,” Charlie sighed, ran a hand through her hair to try and restore some order to it—a statement, a fact. “...Maybe we should call it a night for now, and try again tomorrow.”
Alastor chuckled—Charlie had yet to see him without his lips parted in a grin wide enough to show off his black gums, baring his teeth. It was a mix of intimidating and polite that Charlie couldn’t understand, and every time he spoke, it sounded like it was through an old fashioned radio. “It’s awfully early to be throwing in the towel, Charlie, my dear.” His voice was tauntingly cheerful—deep down, she knew he probably didn’t care about her or what she was trying to do, saw her as nothing more than a source of entertainment, but the tone in his voice gave her just enough hope to think she might be able to keep going—maybe this next demon would be interested!
”It’s getting late, though,” she said.
”Yes,” he said. “The later it is at night, the more people you’ll run into who regret their decision that have landed them here.” He smiled like he had a thousand secrets and was wondering which ones to tell you—Alastor was a mystery to her, but she didn’t let that intimidate her. If anything, he should probably fear her, being the princess of Hell and all. “If anything, we’re more likely now than ever to find someone interested.”
She glanced at him—now she was suspicious. “You really think so?”
“It’s a possibility, isn’t it?” That wasn’t an answer. He shifted his grip on his cane. “I just believe it’d be a real shame to give up this early in your endeavors.”
”Right,” she said. She turned back to the window, searching the slowly passing sidewalk for anyone looking regretful, or at the very least not busy, but the streets were empty. “The endeavors you’re here to watch fail.”
She could feel his gaze burning a hole through her neck—from anyone else, she’d assume that meant she made him angry, but she was just beginning to think his eyes kind of just... did that. He laughed—and some sort of audience from his microphone seemed to laugh with him. “Don’t you want to prove me wrong?”
Yes. More than just about anything—she wanted to prove him, her parents, and most of Hell wrong, and show that redemption was possible. That anyone who seriously wanted to turn over a new leaf could if just given the chance—and Alastor didn’t believe in her or her cause for a minute, but was still making it a possibility, and that was enough to get her to keep going.
The limo turned down a corner and continued on straight. Charlie bit her lip. “...No one’s out anymore,” she said. “That’s weird.”
Alastor hummed, like he was thinking—for some reason, Charlie didn’t really feel like he actually thought, because he seemed so damn confident in everything he had done. He had waltzed into her hotel like he owned the place, done more for it than she had by herself, and it seemed like he had the exact same answers he needed and wanted on the tip of his tongue at a moment’s notice. “I think you scared them away, dear.”
She laughed—her family’s white limo’s were recognizable, without a doubt, but they didn’t usually clear streets. All the same, no one was out and about, like you’d usually expect. Hell was so crowded, Charlie didn’t think she was used to seeing it so... empty, barring that moment right before she put out fireworks, when she was certain the Exorcists had left and she was standing on the balcony, knowing that she was quite possibly the only living, breathing thing outside.
...Hell wasn’t supposed to be so quiet—the good news was, it looked like more demons were slowly filtering back into the area. Whatever the population had been hiding from in avoiding this particular street must have gone, the danger passed.
“Wow,” she breathed, like she was realizing it all over again. “Hell’s really crowded.”
”Really?” Alastor asked, a pop of static enunciating his words. “I hadn’t noticed.” When she looked over her shoulder back at him, his grin seemed a bit wider.
She turned back to the window, just in time to catch a young woman smoking a cigarette in the yellow light of a lamppost.
Charlie knew she was queer. Like, aggressively queer. She had known it for most of her life, and the only time it had surprised her parents was one moment when she was but a few decades old and her parents had been talking, something about her father and how much he loved his wife and one day, Charlie would likely understand that, when she got a spouse, and Charlie—just a few decades old, which would be a human’s equivalent of maybe five—had expressed an interest in getting a wife. Her father had thrown his head back in a laugh in surprise, and then never seemed surprised ever again.
And she never hid her interest in women or men. Her parents cared about a few selective things in her life, and had a distinct lack of interest in all the others—her love life had been a thing they could never make up their mind over. They had been happy, when she had started dating Seviathan, somewhat disappointed when they broke up—sometimes, they seemed to want her to settle down with a demon, but they wanted a powerful demon, she could tell, probably Hellborn royalty, though they weren’t incredibly obvious about the preference. It might have only been a slight preference, Charlie had no way to tell.
But fuck, sometimes she forgot how pretty women could be.
She was thin with grey, muted skin and long, thick white hair that covered one of her eyes, except for a scarlet X that glowed straight through the pale curtain of her hair that should have had it covered—her other eye had a white iris. For some reason, Charlie found herself utterly enchanted by the light pink in her scelera, and the stripes at the ends of her hair, the points of the bow on the back of her head that jutted up into the air, trailed down her back, just slightly longer than her hair. God, her hair was long. And her eyelashes were so thick. She was pretty.
Slowly, Charlie realized all the other things about her—she was holding a lit cigarette, staring down at the sidewalk. She was dressed in shorts that bared every inch of her slender legs and left very little up to Charlie’s gay imagination, and a crop top of white lace. That, paired with the black choker around her neck, a simple black band around her throat, and the bruises beneath her eye, and clinging to the side of her nose, and her singular gold earring, large and dangling from an earlobe Charlie didn’t see, a cross between a heart shape and double helix that glinted red in the light—
...She really, really shouldn’t assume—but she got that feeling that she worked for Valentino.
The driver was used to stopping every time they passed by a singular demon, so they didn’t wait for Charlie to tell them to stop before pulling over to the side of the curb. “She... kind of looks like she’s regretting something?” It wasn’t supposed to sound like a question, just an observation—she also looked beautiful. Any girl she passed by she would think beautiful, but it didn’t make it any less true.
“Only one way to find out,” Alastor said.
She cleared her throat, ran a hand through her hair real quick and rolled down the window.
It took Vaggie a hot second to realize she felt someone’s eyes on her—even longer for her to remember just what she was doing on the corner, up until the window was rolled down and she remembered.
Right. Prostitution. She was a prostitute tonight.
She swallowed and stepped forward—the light gleamed off the metal of the car, and in the shadowed interior, she could make out a stranger.
She was pale, with giant, dark eyes—definitely one of the more human looking demons down here. Actually, for a minute, Vaggie honestly thought she was human, before she noticed her upturned, pointed nose looked canine, and the red circles on her cheeks made her look like a doll, or a marionette that her dark eyes and pale, porcelain skin didn’t help with. “Hello,” Vaggie said.
”Hi,” the woman said.
They stared at each other.
Vaggie shifted on her feet—she wasn’t holding a gun or anything, and she looked pretty. Could be worse Johns, right? She swallowed. “Um, do you...”
...How the fuck did people go about this? She had seen Angel get customers, and he made it look easy, but she was no Angel Dust. She could not just stroll up to people and get them to want to fuck her—and she had been fine with that, because it had never been anything she wanted to do—up until it was what she needed.
The woman blinked up at her—probably wondering why the prostitute she was about to solicit was such an idiot. Her palms felt damp—she subtly wiped them on her pants, tried to think of something to say, but her mouth went dry—dryer than it had been a few moments ago. Her hands were wet, her mouth was dry, and honestly, at this point, she was so unaroused she was certain if she did actually get in the car with this woman and go to some cheap motel or something, that the moment her clothes were off, she would just suck all the arousal and sexiness out of the room.
She was out of practice. Oh, fuck. She was going to have to tell Valentino tomorrow what a horrible hooker she was—that she scared off all potential clients because she was awkward about it all—if he was in a good mood, he might laugh and just say that she wouldn’t be streetwalking for awhile if she was that bad at it. If he was in a bad mood, he’d be angry. She’d have to find some other way to make it up to him.
She wasn’t sure what she could really do—but she was sure she didn’t want to find out.
She tried to think of something to somehow salvage this terrible conversation that she didn’t even want to have and shouldn’t have to have, so she thought she should apologize. “I’m sorry, I am bad at this.” She wiped her palms down again.
”Uh, so am I.” She tucked her hair over her shoulder—in the light, it glowed yellow.
Vaggie had been dead for seven years. Seven years without seeing the light of day, the sunsets of her home—but fuck, she could remember the way the sun would beat down on her skin, and in that moment, all she could think of was how it looked like this woman had snatched the summer sunlight she had nearly forgotten about and attached it to her scalp in threads, and that was ridiculous, and stupid, and so gay.
And she was still talking, fuck, Vaggie hadn’t zoned out, had she?
”Um, I really, really hope I’m not jumping to conclusions, but um—figured I should... make it clear that we’re not looking to solicit a prostitute—“ We? “—N-Not that there’s anything wrong with that or anything, I mean, if you’re... Um, sorry, let me start over—my name’s Charlie.” She blinked again—Vaggie couldn’t decide whether or not to look at her eyes or her hair. Her heart still wasn’t beating, but she felt her face flush. “Charlie Morningstar.”
Morningstar. She instinctively took a step back. “Morningstar? Do you mean... As in um... Lucifer’s daughter, Charlie Morningstar?”
Fuck, she was dumb. She must've been. She was standing before the daughter of the devil and hadn't known, surely there was something that would scare the sane, people like Vaggie, away from her. Charlie nodded. “Yeah, that’s me—oh! And...” She moved to the side, showing a second passenger in the limo—his eyes and smile seemed to glow in the scarce lighting, and she felt a shiver run down her spine. “This is Alastor.”
She immediately recognized that name. “Do you mean the Radio Demon?” She took a second step back.
It must have looked like she was ready to start booking it or something, because Charlie reached out an arm. “No! Wait, don’t go! I wanted to talk to you.”
She didn’t run. Maybe she should have—in general, Valentino’s mark kept her safe from some of the crazies down in Hell. Valentino would find a way to get back at anyone who hurt his employees too much. Another sort of hierarchy at the studio—the technically temporary employees like Vaggie were at the bottom. In general, Valentino tended to care less about them. The ones on contract were basically guaranteed protection from anyone that wasn’t above Valentino in Hell’s horrible food chain. Run of the mill serial killers or rapists? They came at her, Valentino would have them in a snuff film within twenty four hours. A relatively normal, not too powerful Overlord? They better stay off his turf and away from his employees if they wanted to stay among the... well, not the living.
But with Alastor’s status as one of the most unpredictable and powerful Overlords of Hell, there was little Valentino would do—especially for her. If he murdered one of his top earners (like Angel Dust), then that might warrant some sort of reaction, but she wasn’t even under contract. And a Morningstar? Fuck, no one wanted to get on the Morningstar’s bad side for any reason, Valentino was more likely to apologize that she got to murder one of his lower quality whores before he took any sort of action, Vaggie was fucked.
...She was a little worried that, if she did survive this, she was going to be scared and sign her soul on over to Valentino—either way, she was fucked, and that was a major if on survival.
Her shoulders slumped. She looked at Charlie, features pinched with worry (...that a potential murder victim was slipping away from her grasp?) and asked, “Am... I getting murdered tonight?”
Alastor, from inside the limo, responded. “Who knows? The night’s still young. Only time will tell!”
”Al!” Charlie threw a look at him, over the canned laughter from somewhere inside there. She looked back at her. “Sorry—that’s just his sense of humor, he’s not going to murder you, and I’m not either. I was just hoping we could talk to you?”
She had no idea where her cigarette went. “Sorry, I... I am kind of on the clock.” she jerked a thumb to the lamppost she had just been standing by, like it was where she clocked in.
Charlie smiled. “I can pay you!”
...So, not really any reason to refuse, she guessed. She crossed her arms over her chest and glanced around before looking back at Charlie, big dark eyes looking at her almost hopefully. “...Okay,” she sighed. She’d probably scare off any other clients tonight—the more money she had to give Valentino, the less angry he’d be come morning, and yeah, she was relatively new down in Hell, in comparison to the types of people (like Angel, like Valentino) who had been down here for decades, but you didn’t have to be decades old to understand you wanted to stay on the good side of some people.
Charlie’s smile only brightened. She moved over, opened the door and, albeit hesitantly, Vaggie stepped in.
She blinked—she had never seen the Radio Demon up close, and told herself she’d much prefer keeping her distance from him for now on. He was much taller than her, thin, and his mouth held more teeth than she thought was possible, each one pointed, jagged—it was a predator’s mouth, attached to a cross between a man and a deer. She kept herself close to the door, in case she needed to start running—she had heard that if you ran from the Radio Demon, he wouldn’t give chase, but she only hoped she wouldn’t be needing to prove it right or wrong tonight.
Charlie’s smile was much smaller than Alastor’s, but a part of her thought it should look more menacing, considering it was on a demon, a Hellborn princess. She didn’t think demons could be anything other than evil. “What did you say your name was?” She asked.
She ran a hand over the door handle. “My name is Vaggie.”
”’Vaggie,’” Charlie repeated. “That’s...” Yeah, she was kind of used to those reactions to her name. Valentino had laughed at her for a solid three minutes when he heard her name. “That’s your name?”
”It’s a bad name, I know.”
“That is a terrible name,” Alastor said, cheerfully. “Definitely one of the worst names I’ve ever heard, and I met a man named Daisy!”
”Yeah,” she said. Her face felt warm. She crossed an arm over her chest and worried it just drew attention to how flat it was. They were sitting in silence now—with only her terrible name and the commentary on it hanging in the air. It was pretty awkward, because it was a terrible name, and she was pretty sure she’d rather go have sex with a man than sit here while two strangers (one of which was a serial killer and an Overlord, and the other which was the fucking Princess of Hell) judged the Hell out of her name. “What was it?” She asked. “That you wanted to talk to me about?”
”Huh?” Charlie said, like she hadn’t been the one to invite her into this limo. “Oh! Right, sorry. Um...” She cleared her throat. “Is there any chance you’ve heard of the Happy Hotel?”
Vaggie chewed her lip. It sounded... vaguely familiar, a thing she had likely heard in passing, maybe? “Um...Oh! That News segment mentioned you!”
Charlie laughed lightly. “You saw that?”
”No, I didn’t see it, but there was mentions of it, it was like, the week after, and they played a clip from it.” Now that she thought about it, hadn’t they mentioned a Radio Demon then? “...But it was uh... a nice song. That you... sang.”
Charlie smiled. “Thanks—the... News segment didn’t go super good, but it got... some word out there about the Hotel. Basically what we’re trying to do is solve Hell’s overpopulation problem through redemption. The idea is we get one demon—to start with!—into Heaven through self-betterment and reflection, to prove that it’s possible, and that there’s ways other than the yearly Exterminations to deal with overpopulation.
”So! I started up the first of it’s kind, a hotel meant to rehabilitate sinners—the majority of Hell’s population! And—thanks to Alastor’s help—“ She gestured to Alastor, but Vaggie hadn’t forgotten he was there, with his red eyes boring holes straight through her, keeping her pinned with his gaze alone. “—the hotel now actually has a staff and more support.”
Vaggie nodded, and took a quick glance at Alastor. “...So... the Radio Demon believes in redemption?”
Alastor laughed, a loud ringing sound that filled the limo and made her feel stupid for asking. “Of course not, my dear! Redemption is but a pipe dream—a keen idea, to be sure, but not one any damned soul down here will ever achieve!”
Wow. Okay, then. She turned back to Charlie. “Is it possible?” She had... many doubts, but she had admitted to herself a long, long time ago she wasn't an expert.
Charlie looked... tired. “I don’t know,” she said. “But we were hoping to find someone interested, who might be willing to test our...” Alastor cocked his head. ”...Well, my theory.”
Vaggie nodded—she wasn’t quite sure how to feel about the idea of redemption. She was down here for a reason. But Charlie looked so pretty, with her giant, dark eyes and sunshine hair. “So, uh...” She cleared her throat. “What exactly does staying at the hotel entail?”
This was the right question to ask, if the way she lit up ever so slightly meant anything. “We pay for your food and boarding—and you attend various activities meant to make you a better person. It’s... still a bit of a work in progress, in all honesty, but...” That gentle tilt to her lips, the way her eyelashes fluttered—fuck, she was gay. “We’d love for you to be a test subject!”
...A test subject.
She still didn’t know how to feel about any of this. She mulled it in over her head, but it didn’t lead to any answers, and across from her, Charlie seemed to deflate. “It’s... okay if you aren’t interested—a... lot of demons down here didn’t like the idea either, but... even if you don’t want to now, if you have a change of heart later, you’ll be more than welcomed at our hotel. T—“
The words came out rushed, hurried—she didn’t want Charlie to think she was against the idea, she wasn’t, she was just... thinking. “No, wait, I’m not...” She cleared her throat. “I’m not against the idea, it’s just—that’s a lot to think about, you know? I’ve... only been down here for seven years, I just assumed this was... it.”
The moment she had fallen down here, she had known all her afterlife had to hold was the streets. She had thought she’d die on them, when she was cornered and bleeding in that alleyway—and just like that, it had been over. And she was still very dead, but not any more than she had been the moment she fell down in Hell.
And then she assumed that was it. Just an eternity, possibly, or maybe just the year until the next Extermination—homeless. Starving on the streets because any money she earned ended up going to her next dose of heroin—it kept her appetite at bay, and she hated herself every time she used, but it was enough to keep the worst of her self-loathing, and bitter memories, and stress away.
And then Valentino had came—and she started to work under him. And she had assumed that that was it—she was either going to sell her soul to him, resign herself to an eternity of work that she could barely stand and pray to whatever or whoever was listening to a damned sinner like her that her contract would protect her from the worst of Hell, or go back to being homeless eventually.
The idea of anything else was... foreign. Should she be hopeful? The idea was she’d be out of here. She wouldn’t need a contract with Valentino if she was redeemed, or staying at the hotel, would she?
But Charlie smiled, sweeter than honey. She was smiling at her, and for a moment there, Vaggie almost started because it felt like her heart (the cold, still thing it was in her chest) had beat at least once, for the first time in over seven years. Like when she was alive, and her heart used to skip a beat—only now there was no beats to skip, just to have, and...
”No,” Charlie said. “Things can change—if you want them to.”
...Alastor might have been right—a keen idea, indeed. But fuck, with the way Charlie looked at her, she might be willing to give it a try. If Valentino looked the way Charlie did, Vaggie’s soul would be burning a hole in his pocket (well... probably not literally, she didn’t imagine that was what happened with souls demons owned, but that just made her wonder what did happen to your soul when you sold it).
”It’s a lot,” Charlie said, sympathetically. She pulled out a thin business card from a pocket in her red suit (maybe that was it? Vaggie had always had a thing for girls in suits.) and handed it to her. Vaggie turned her gaze to it, the simple, scarlet lettering telling her how to keep in touch. “You don’t need to have a definitive answer on whether or not this is what you want to do with your afterlife—I understand. But if you’re interested.”
...She thought she might be.
She looked up at Charlie again. “I’ll think about it,” she said.
Her smile was bright enough to sear itself on the back of Vaggie’s eyelids. “Great!” Charlie said. “I hope you’ll consider—oh, I said I’d pay you, huh?”
She pushed a large stack of bills into her hand—Vaggie had to do a double take.
That was it. No question about how much Vaggie would usually charge, no hassle, she just forked over a seemingly random (and large) sum of money.
She looked back at her. “...That’s a lot for a five minute conversation.”
Charlie blinked, almost innocently. “How much do you usually charge for a five minute conversation?
”Definitely not this much.” She had never had a five minute conversation with a client. Most of the time it was either sex or they lost interest, at least, down here anyway—with her cam shows, it had never been an issue, but...
”Think of it as a tip,” Charlie said. “Of all the demons we spoke to today, you were the only one who at least... entertained the possibility, instead of walking away immediately. Thank you.”
She looked at one of the bills—it didn’t look counterfeit, but she knew counterfeit bills could still look pretty real, so it might not have meant much. “...I think I should be thanking you?”
She stepped out—the limo had been warm, she realized once she was out, or maybe it had just been an imagined heat from the way Charlie’s hair shined. “I really hope you call,” Charlie said.
Her mind was still catching up with everything. “I do too,” she responded.
She smiled again. “Thanks again.”
And just like that, the exchange was over—Vaggie could have spoken to her for hours if she let her, but the window rolled up and the limo sped off.
Another rumble of thunder sounded in the distance and Vaggie almost jumped, but not this time. She looked the card over in her hand, thoughts still racing, like she had yet to process there wasn’t any questions she could ask at the time, and she barely noticed the rain drops that hit her skin, even as they began to fall faster.
Five minutes. It had only taken her five minutes—and she had earned enough cash to get Valentino over tonight, and she hadn’t had to sleep with anyone for it.
And she had fallen in lust with the princess of Hell. In five minutes. She had forgotten she had a thing for blondes.
She looked at the card again—an ice cold raindrop fell onto the top of her head and almost snapped her out of it, a faint remainder that it was gonna rain and she didn’t want to be outside when the skies broke away to unload enough rainwater to flood the streets—she had been on the streets once during Pentagram City’s floods, and it was enough to scare her off forever.
The phantom feeling of her long gone heartbeat followed her every step of the way back to the studio.
”Fuck,” Angel breathed nearby. “...That’s so gay.”
Vaggie didn’t really like getting her nails painted, but she got the feeling (from the way Angel stiffened during every roll of thunder and had taken shelter in Vaggie’s room apparently tonight) that he needed this, so she decided to suck it up just this once—plus, people apparently had a thing for watching girls with nice looking nails masturbate, if the videos she had personally watched meant anything. “I should tell you,” she said, dryly. “I’m gay.”
”The plot twist is,” Angel said, swiping the brush over her last finger and screwing the cap back on the bottle of nail polish. “I’m actually violently homophobic.”
Vaggie gave him a weak chuckle—not because it was all that funny, more of that polite laugh she gave sometimes, because otherwise, it’d just be her and Angel staring at each other in silence while they rushed to forget about the other’s jokes that weren’t even slightly funny. “I mean, I guess I’m not that surprised,” Angel said. “But I mean, really? The princess? That’s your type? Rich girls with powerful daddies? Who pro’lly spend Friday nights sippin’ pink lemonade and listenin’ to bedroom pop and show tunes in oversized sweaters, surrounded by stuffed animals?”
”That’s specific,” Vaggie said.
”Don’t judge me, ya know you’re the one with the super specific type, right?” He had changed into a baggy t-shirt that bore his stomach unless he was hunched over and a pair of shorts—it didn’t cover much skin, but still managed to look more comfortable than sexy. “Damn—her father could kick your ass, ya know that? Like, snap his fingers and blam! You’re in half.”
”...I am regretting mentioning this to you.”
”Ya are? Ouch, Vaggie—I thought we were friends!” He crossed his legs and grabbed her liquor—literally just a cheap bottle of tequila that burned more than it tasted—loosely by the neck. “Seriously, though—ya think you’re gonna call her?”
”I don’t know,” she said, but a part of her did know—Lucifer’s daughter, and heir to Hell’s throne and she had been... nice. Kind and polite, and her hair... Fuck, she was so gay. She didn’t know someone’s hair could drive her crazy. Someone she had spoken to for five minutes, too. “...She paid good.”
Angel hummed, leaned back on a pair of hands to look at her closer. “...If ya fucked a Morningstar, ya gotta tell me. Ya just hafta, toots—I don’t make the rules, did you fuck her?”
She sputtered out a “What?”
”Ya know... fuck her. Go cunt boxing. Won a match of back seat bingo. Got laid. Hooked up. Intercourse. Got a home fuckin’ run with Charlie Morningstar, in her family’s limo.”
Her face heated up—she was a goddamn cam girl, and the idea of talking about having sex with a friend(?) had her beet red. And Angel continued, “Coitous. Mate. Shag. Fooled around with. Root. Bang. Bone.”
He could probably go on forever if she didn’t stop him. “No! Fuck! No, I didn’t fuck her!”
He nodded, threw one last glance at the dresser drawer Vaggie had hid the wad of cash Charlie had given her. “Makes sense—that’s a lotta money for one quick roll in the sheets. I mean, must be some pretty good pussy to get paid that much.”
”We didn’t fuck.”
”That’s like, the type o’ pussy that’s good enough to turn a gay man straight. Or a straight girl gay. The type of pussy that’d feel good on your fingers alone.”
”Please, fucking Hell, stop talking.”
Angel grinned. She pressed her palms flat on her thighs—the first thing she had done when she got home was drink like, five glasses of water, and then she had changed into some pajamas. If she thought she could get away with it, she’d burn her outfit that laid crumpled and wrinkled on the floor—she had no idea where her bow had gone.
Her parents had told her that alcohol tasted better, with time. Books always showed it getting better the more you drank, but she swore it got worse. The tequila burned her throat and made her eyes water, sweet on her tongue—but she kept drinking anyway, and she was honestly grateful for Angel’s presence. It made it feel a little more like she was drinking with a friend instead of being miserable, alone in her room, in bed. “I bet’chya got all sorts o’ gayngst, huh?” He said.
”Gay angst?” She asked.
”Yeah,” he said. “Angst ya get ‘cause you’re gay.”
She shrugged. “I mean, I have some internalized shit.” She idly scratched at her wrist—she wasn’t sure if it itched, but it had become a habit since middle school. “It’s just what happens when your mother disowns you for being gay...”
”Oh, yours too?” Angel asked. “Mine fainted.”
She winced and looked down at the rim of the bottle. There’d been something on her mind, since she fell down. “Do...Do you think that’s why you're--we’re down here? Because we’re gay?”
Angel snorted. “Depends who ya ask, toots—my father thinks that’s why I’m down here, but I’m pretty sure it’s the people I killed. ...He also called me a troia, and kicked me out of my house, but even for him, it’s pro’lly the homicides.” He rubbed the side of his nose. “C’mon, be straight with me a sec’ here.” She felt an immature, poorly timed smile spread across her face at his choice of words. “Ya ever killed anyone?”
“...No,” she said. “I was kind of a bitch, though.”
”Yep,” Angel said. “That’ll do ya. Bitches go to Hell.” He snagged the bottle again. “Did ya know bitches are more likely to go to Hell then murderers? Crazy, right?”
”Also not true,” she said.
”Now that’s true.” He took another swig—one day, they’d make cocktails or something, make it look like they were drinking for fun and not just because they were miserable. But today was not that day.
Vaggie sighed. “I have to talk to Valentino tomorrow too.”
Something flitted across Angel’s expression. “Yeah? He talked to you tonight, right?”
”Yeah, he made me work the corner to make up for scaring off a customer.” She sighed. “...I’m really glad I ran into Morningstar and the Radio Demon, at least I didn’t have to work anymore.” It was more than enough money to get Valentino to quit being angry—and hopefully get a dose or two of heroin.
”Did he hurt you?”
Vaggie frowned. “Just some hair pulling,” she responded. “And he gave me corner duty.”
“Ugh, the corner fuckin’ sucks. I skipped out on a gangbang to do one o’ his fuckin’ drug deals, and he made me work one—bastard didn’t even give me any condoms. Got fucked within an inch o’ my afterlife by some lackluster, tall ginger dickwad, he wasn’t even that good, but at least he was rich.”
She shuddered—literally, just the thought squicked her out, and of course, Angel noticed. “How the fuck did Valentino manage to pull ya off the streets?” He laughed—before quieting down. Her face felt warm, but she kind of just wanted to roll over and go to sleep for a few years—Angel’d have to leave soon, so she could fall asleep soon.
They continued to sit in silence. “Ya gonna call her?” Angel asked. “Who knows, maybe bangin’ her will make ya less bitchy.”
She decided she was going to ignore that last bit of his sentence. “I don’t know,” she admitted. “I’m considering it.” She took another swig and it was just as awful as all the others. “Angel, you’ve been down here longer than me. Do you think something like redemption is possible?”
He laughed. “Fuck no! That’s bullshit, Vaggie—she’s just gonna make ya get clean, assuming it ain’t a scam or anythin’. Maybe she didn’t kill ya tonight, maybe she’s just waitin’ to get ya alone, so she can gut ya.”
”Gut me?” Vaggie asked.
”Yep. Like a fish. You know how to gut a fish, right?” He reached over and traced a finger from on her stomach, below her navel up to her collarbone, like he needed to teach her how to gut a fish.
She smacked his hand away—he laughed. “That is not how you gut a fish, asshole,” she spat. “You cut off the fins and scrape the scales off with the back of your knife, and you slide the knife through the vent until you’re an inch or two beneath the mouth—fuck, I need to teach you how to gut a fish.” An entire childhood of sitting outside with her father and watching him gut them on the sidewalk had made her an expert—she had plenty of knowledge to share with Angel.
He finished off her alcohol and set the empty bottle down on her nightstand. “I’ll let you borrow my pepper spray, in case cunt boxin’ turns into actual boxin’, or to the death or whatever.”
“...Thanks.”
He grinned and rose to his feet, stretching his arms over his head. “Better get goin’, toots—Nuggs doesn’t like ta be alone for too long, and we’re out o’ liquor.” They only really liked each other when they were on some sort of substance. “Don’t miss me too much, baby.”
”Yeah, that’s the last thing you have to worry about.”
Angel laughed and all but strode out of the room—the rest of his night must have gone somewhat decent, she guessed.
She fell onto her back on her bed and sighed—she had to admit, whatever she had done to end up here, she regretted it, but she couldn’t really think about regret. Valentino would want her in his office, bright and early, and while going without sleep would never really kill her, it still sucked.
Falling asleep was in her best interest, and all the all nighters in her afterlife had been results of thinking too hard about her life before, so... she needed to stop.
She swallowed—she forced the thoughts of her life back, and in pushing them away, they only seemed to cling to her tired, stressed mind. She raced for anything else to think of.
Her mind drifted to Valentino’s limo, and a wave of nausea turned her stomach—so she thought of the other limo.
She thought of the leather seats on her skin. How warm she had felt. That simple, quick little heartbeat in her chest, that blonde hair over her shoulder, shining like sunlight...
That warmth spiraling into her gut where her nerves had been was not the result of sunlight, but was the result of Charlie’s hair. Fuck. She was getting horny thinking about a stranger. She had fallen into lust with the princess of Hell after a singular conversation.
She wasn’t a stranger to thoughts like this about attractive women she had met—but they didn’t usually form within five minutes. And she hadn’t had them in awhile, either. Fuck, her only serious relationship had been when she was alive and it had not ended well, it was honestly enough to scare her off of dating for just about forever.
She really had always had a thing for blondes, huh? Her fifth grade teacher, and then when her art teacher in middle school wore a wig that gave her blonde hair tumbling over her shoulders in waves that accentuated her curves. That one girl she had met about her age when she was seventeen, there on a vacation with tanned skin and hair so pale it was almost white with a singular red streak and a silver lip ring Vaggie imagined feeling cool against her own lips—
And then just one woman, three years older than her, with curves that showed she was all angles and golden hair she could never get under control—just thinking about Laura...
Laura didn’t make her heart beat anymore, just ache.
This was a temporary thing, obviously. A fleeting, stupid, kinda sexy crush on a pretty young woman—that was all, but Vaggie couldn’t sort out whether or not it was just who was telling her all about the hotel that made it appealing, or if she really wanted redemption.
She really wasn’t against the idea.
She turned onto her side, tucked an arm beneath her head and ended up tugging on her earring, so she took it out and placed it on the nightstand before laying back down again.
...Now the thought wouldn’t leave her alone—did she want to change? Did she actually want to better herself? Her heart wasn’t beating, so she couldn’t think with it, this was just... lust. Was she thinking with her head or her vagina?
She sighed and looked at the card—maybe it didn’t matter too much, when she knew, no matter that answer, she had an answer for Charlie.
She was interested.